1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display apparatus, an image display program, an image display method, and a recording medium for recording the image display program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, the development of the Internet increases the demand for showing an image on a homepage, and a digital camera for easily photographing a digital still image has been widely spread. Further, the digital camera improves its photography standing in the professional field including news photography and commercial photography as well as in the amateur field because an image can be sent to a newspaper company via communication without the development of the image, the development of an image pickup device having a large number of pixels enables the photographing of an image with the same precision as that of silver-halide photography, and the photo can be easily digital-processed.
Upon selecting the image photographed by the digital camera used for a post card by an amateur photographer, or selecting the image to be posted on a magazine by a professional photographer, similarly to a photo or film photographed by a silver-halide film camera, a plurality of images are arranged and are compared with each other.
As an example of the technology for the above comparison, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-45334 discloses an image display and comparing method comprising the steps of: displaying a plurality of images on a display apparatus on the basis of a plurality of sets of image data corresponding to the plurality of images; selecting any of the plurality of images as a reference image; setting a processing parameter for predetermined image processing of the reference image; executing the predetermined image processing of the reference image on the basis of the processing parameter and displaying on the display apparatus the image after the predetermined image processing; and executing the predetermined image processing of images excluding the reference image from the plurality of images on the basis of the processing parameter and displaying on the display apparatus the image after the predetermined image processing.
The operating efficiency on processing and comparing the selected plurality of images is improved by enlargement/reduction, movement, area cutting-out, and rotation while using the plurality of images arranged and displayed in interlocking therewith.
However, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-45334, the images cannot be easily compared by enlargement/reduction or movement while using the plurality of images in interlocking therewith. That is, in the comparison, various images are mixed, for example, the number of pixels (resolution) forming the image is varied, the photographing direction is varied, e.g., the image is photographed at the position in the longitudinal direction or the image is photographed at the position in the lateral direction, and the zooming factor of a photographing optical system in the photographing is varied. The display size of a main object is generally different in each of images when images are arranged and displayed. Therefore, even when the images are used in interlocking therewith and the images are enlarged, the enlargement is performed with different sizes of the main objects. The simple interlocking of images does not facilitate the comparison.